Actress Jennifer Garner lobbies Ky. lawmakers for Save the Children work in Appalachia

Jennifer Garner (Courier-Journal
photo by Matt Herp)

Actress Jennifer Garner told Kentucky legislators Tuesday that once she became a Hollywood star with the ability to be a philanthropist, "I knew exactly what I wanted it to be. I knew it had to be kids in rural America."

Garner, who grew up in West Virginia, asked lawmakers "to preserve $1 million in funding for Save the Children’s early childhood and literacy programs that serve more than 12,000 Kentucky children," Valarie Honeycutt Spears reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "She joined Save the Children Action Network President Mark Shriver at Senate and House committee meetings to discuss the value of high-quality early learning."

Shriver and Garner, who is on the organization's board, had breakfast with new Republican Gov. Matt Bevin. Bevin has proposed a 9 percent budget cut for most agencies, including preschool services, but his plan has $941,400 for the Save the Children program, and Senate President Robert Stivers, "who held a news conference with Shriver later Tuesday, said, 'I think there is a high likelihood that it would survive' through the legislature's budget process," Tom Loftus of The Courier-Journal reports. "Save the Children programs have shown stronger results in Kentucky than in any other state in helping kids from birth through the third grade, Shriver said."